You may have seen our recent
article covering a conference call presented by Iron Man 2 developer:
Sega San Francisco. The First Hour was invited to take part in
a small pre-release Q&A with two of the people involved with the
production of the game. I sat in on the call and submitted a few
questions. It was a good conversation and lots of aspects of the game
were touched on, so if you’d like some more insight into what went
into making this game what it is, please check it out here.

Ok, now that that’s out of
the way, I recently sat down with a copy of Iron Man 2. To state
the obvious, Iron Man 2 is the sequel to Iron Man. Both games were released
to coincide with the movies of the same name. As most people know, releasing
a game on a movies timeline can be... problematic. It often
leads to rushed development schedules and lots of cut corners in the
final product. Despite this situation, the first game was commercially
successful. However, it struggled to win over most critics. With
an aggregate score of 45 on Metacritic, that’s probably an understatement.
However, I was one of the people who enjoyed the first game (while recognizing
it’s many flaws), which is why I was chosen/volunteered to review
the sequel.

Much like Greg’s recent review
of Saboteur, this game is the final release of a studio before it gets
shut down. Sega San Fancisco, formerly Secret Level Games will
close shortly after the release of Iron Man 2. This does not bode
well for the 3 other gamers besides me crossing their fingers for a
Golden Axe: Beast Rider sequel.

I went into this first hour
with an open mind and reasonable expectations. Having enjoyed
the first game, more of the same with increased graphical performance,
control tweaks and mission diversity would be a good start. Let’s
see if they were able to squeeze any of that into the first 60 minutes
of Iron Man 2.

Our copy of Iron Man 2 for the Xbox 360 was provided to us by the publisher.

Minute by Minute

(minutes are in bold) 00 – I pop the disc in the tray and boot it up. After pressing
start, I create a new game

01 – I’m given 2
choices; Options, or Campaign, I choose Campaign and set the difficulty
to the default which is “Normal”. You also have a choice of Easy
or Hard.

02 – As I watch a
loading screen based on the power cell in Iron Man's suit, I’m told
that “In flight your suit can keep you aligned with the ground. Turn
auto-level on or off in the pause menu.” A cutscene starts with
Iron Man flying towards a large building with a smoldering hole in the
wall. We see large airborne mechs converging on the scene and Tony’s
voice crackles across the commlink. He says the attack on the facility
was a ruse and that the data spine is the true target. He asks Jarvis
to ring up “Roady”. Jarvis warns that EMP weaponry is being charged
but it’s too late. It goes off and Iron Man takes a digger into
the ground. Tony should really think about some shielding in that
suit of his. The EMP to Iron Man makes Kryptonite to Superman
look like pumpkin pie.

03
– Ok, a new cutscene starts now. Text on the bottom of the screen
indicates that this one takes place “3 hours earlier”. We see Tony
giving a speech about being Iron Man. He’s waxing philosophical
about what it means to be a Super Hero. Apparently it means being
a cocky smartass. Tony drops a few gems about a corporation called Roxxon
and some Russian plans to develop an army of Iron Man drones.
I’m guessing this will be a villain in the upcoming sequence.

04 – The cutscene
ends with Iron Man suiting up and flying out of the building. Jump back
to the “present” and we see Iron Man laying on the ground.
We hear him arguing with Jarvis about how long the suit takes to boot
up. Jarvis makes a crack about being sophisticated.

05 – As the cutscene
ends, the game checkpoints. I’m given a mission onscreen to “Activate
the Auxiliary Shield Generator” and I now have control. Controls are
explained and are standard third person action fare. Left stick
to move, and right to look and turn. Both triggers fire pulse
cannons from the palms of Iron Man’s hands. Pressing “Y” makes
you hover/ascend and pressing “A” makes you descend. Iron Man has
a life indicator similar to that of many modern games. The shield will
regen with time, but if the underlying armor takes damage, it will not.

06 – As I’m taught
how to control Iron Man, I’m moving through a building, running through
doors and levitating through broken ceilings and floors. The EMP has
disabled security doors which have to be hacked. You do this by
simply mashing the B button at a terminal in front of each door.
Tony seems to think it humorous that he’s forced to hack his own doors.
Checkpoint reached.

07 – I enter a large
room filled with some smaller mech enemies. I’m taught to use right
bumper to engage the sighting computer which is essentially auto aim
that jumps to the next enemy as the first falls. I quickly dispatch
several using this technique. As more mechs attack, I’m told to tap
“X” to engage in melee combat. I finish off the next few with punches
and kicks. The game explains a block breaker technique but I don’t
understand how to do it. Pressing left or right on the D-Pad will switch
weapons assigned to left and right trigger. That’s kind of klunky
as I have to take my thumb off the movement stick to switch weapons
which means I get hit pretty much every time I switch weapons.

08 – I continue through
the building and am told to hold right and left trigger to charge the
unibeam chest cannon. I also have the option to use missiles and a shoulder
shotgun by switching weapons.

09 – I’m now told
to “Get to the DataSpine Core”.

10 – I float and run
around the room for what seems like an eternity because I can’t find
the door out. Seems like I should be standing right on top of
it based on the minimap/radar. I look up and see nothing.
Finally after running everywhere, I see there’s a hallway up above
the room with no access to it for anyone who can’t fly. Perhaps
a stairway fell down and was vaporized? Not seeing it made me
feel stupid. I don’t like it when games make me feel stupid.

11 – So I levitate
up to the hallway and run down it. Cutscene. We hear Tonys voice on
the comm again. He says that in order to assure the protection of the
data archive, he’s chosen to blow it up. Achievement Unlocked: 3G
“Shake it Off”.

12 – The cutscene
now shows War Machine flying in from off camera. Tony tells him
to hold off the baddies while he blows the place to hell. War
Machine tells Jarvis to initiate a progress bar, both for the attempted
upload theft and for the initiation of the self destruct. Basically,
I have to make sure the self destruct sequence completes before the
upload does. Apparently the bad guys are trying to upload some
seriously secret data for Tony to blow up the entire facility to protect
it.

13 – Now you take
control of War Machine and find out what the bad guys are trying to
steal. They are attempting to get a backup copy of the Jarvis program.
Not good. As War Machine, I get training in actual flight combat. I’m
told to double tap left bumper to initiate flight and to pull back on
the left stick to stop. As I do this, several helicopters and
small robotic drones start approaching. War Machines weaponry is different
than Iron Man’s. Instead of palm pulse cannons and a single
rocket launcher, War Machine has shoulder mounted gatling guns and burst-fire
missile launchers. They each have a limited amount of firepower
before having to reload. The gatling gun is pretty powerful but
has a very limited range.

14 – As I slowly dispatch
wave upon wave of helicopters, drones and flying mechs, I’m told that
once per mission I can engage my suits mega weapon. It will make me
temporarily invulnerable and boost the strength of my arsenal for a
limited time.

15 – Once every enemy
is dead, the tower blows up and War Machine flies off in a mini cutscene.
The mission is over and I’m given a score for the level. The total
equates to how much I have to spend between levels. Achievement Unlocked:
10G “Access Denied”.

16 – We see Iron Man
and War Machine make a flying entrance in the open back of a cargo plane.
Pepper Potts is there waiting. They discuss the theft of Jarvis.
Apparently the previous mission was only a partial success. They surmise
that the only ones positioned to take advantage of such a theft would
be a Russian General named Valentin Shaderov aided by Roxxon Corp.
Apparently Valentin runs the Russian Tesla facility and apparently every
action game MUST include some form of Tesla technology.

Let’s get em!

18 – Now it goes to
the pre-mission power up portion. The background looks to be “labby”
with lots of technological looking stuff. My options for alteration
include Suit Customization, Inventing, Fabrication, and Research. It
works like this. You do research, which allows you to invent things,
which then you can use those things in fabrications allowing you to
make customizations. It’s a big chain that you need to wrap
your head around to utilize. I could probably spend 20-30 minutes looking
at options and tinkering, but that would make for a boring 60 minutes.
So I’ll do some research quick, invent some concussive rounds (first
and cheapest option) and then customize my suit with them. Done. Next
Mission.

21 – Ok, so we’re
back on the airplane. Iron Man communicates with Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D.
(nicely voiced by Samuel L. Jackson). We make arrangements to
do a stealth incursion into Russia to try to take out the facility where
they’re running the rogue Iron Man program, which is why they stole
Jarvis.

20 – Turns out the
Tesla facility has fallen into separatist control and that’s why S.H.I.E.L.D.
is going in. We decide to team up.

22 – Iron Man’s
mission is to escort the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicopters to the tesla facility.
It’s basically a babysitting mission flying down a canyon killing
everything before it kills the helicopters. It’s mostly tanks on the
ground, copters in the air, and gun turrets along the canyon walls.
If you get too far ahead, or too far behind, the mission ends.
Why would S.H.I.E.L.D. care if I run ahead and kill everything before
they get there? Isn’t that the point? Oh, well. I’ll do it
the way they want me to.

25 – Checkpoint reached.
We’re now near the end of the canyon. Radar detects a large ground
vehicle never seen before. They call it an “Armiger”. It’s basically
a large spiderlike mech pretty much exactly like you’ve seen in a
dozen other games. The ones that first come to mind are Halo 3,
Resistance fall of Man, and Fracture. Fortunately, I’ve
fought these before even if Iron Man hasn’t.

27 – One of the helicopter
pilots I’m escorting gets the bright idea to try to help Iron Man.
Apparently no one told this genius that I’m the badass protecting
him and not the other way around. His helicopter goes down in flames
demonstrating just how nasty this little crab enemy is. Lets do this.

28 – Fury reprimands
the pilots and says to “Let Iron Man go in hot”. I’m told
to push “B” to deflect incoming missiles. To defeat the Armiger,
I use a combination of circle strafing flight, pulse canons, rockets,
and reflected missiles. To finish it off, I have to go in to melee
range and rip the top off which triggers an animation where Iron Man
flies THROUGH it’s body causing it to explode and crumple on itself.
Nice.

30 – So it’s back
to the canyon shooting tanks, helicopters and gun turrets.

31 – In this section,
we get a new enemy. They are large flying mechs with massive missile
batteries for arms. They do a lot of damage to the helicopters
so you have to take them out quickly. Otherwise, the pilots start making
statements about me not doing my job.

32 – Upon reaching
the end of the canyon, I can see a tunnel entrance. It’s surrounded
by dozens of gun emplacements and lots of helicopters. I take
them out the same as the last ones. During the fighting, I experience
my first case of missile spam. This is something that happened in the
first game as well. I was hoping it was fixed. Basically, there are
so many missiles coming at you that you’re constantly having your
actions interrupted to the point where you pretty much can’t do anything
but fall to the ground. It happens repeatedly until you thin out the
missile launchers. I suppose you could hide and shoot from behind cover,
but when have you ever seen Iron Man do that, huh?

34 – Once everything
is dead, you fly into the tunnel and the level is done.

35 – Now as I exit
the tunnel, we see swarms of tanks and helicopters approaching.

36 – The onscreen
mission indicator tells me to “Locate the entrance to the command
center”. A waypoint appears on my minimap and I head that direction
taking out flying mechs on the way. When I get there, I blow something
up and the waypoint changes. Apparently it was a shield generator and
now I can head to the entrance.

37 – Lots of enemies
in the way and I’m just blindly following a waypoint beacon meleeing
the crap out of anything in the way. Once I get where I’m going, I
can’t enter the door. An onscreen note says to locate a power source
for the doors to disable it.

38 – Five yellow markers
appear on my map. I proceed to fight more guys while I go to each and
blow up a small power junction at each location.

39 – Now I can enter
the doors. Inside are several waves of mechs, which I proceed to melee
to death.

40 – In the next set
of rooms, I have to disable some more electronics, then access the command
terminal by mashing “B”.

41 – Once I’ve done
that, I’m told to go enter the top of the battle cruiser and open
the deployment doors. I go back the way I came and fly up top.
I’m starting to get the hang of the flight controls and you can actually
move around the level pretty quickly with some careful flying.
When I get up there, I’m faced with some Iron Man style drones that
need to be melee’d to move past. The controls seem a little
vague (mash ‘x’) and I’m bouncing around between them wildly,
not sure how it’s happening. Perhaps I’m not properly inputting
the direction and it’s just picking one randomly? They’re
really messing me up.

42 – Ok, so I finally
finish them. I run into the next room and open the doors. I have
to mini-game the doors by wiggling the left stick. Now, another
Armiger comes into the scene and I have to exit and destroy it. The
battle is pretty much the same as the last one I took out. This
time I do a little more melee because it’s more fun than circle strafing
with pulse cannons and seems to be more effective. I’m Iron
Man, that’s how I roll. Apparently, that’s also how Iron Man dies.
In my fervor to beat the Armiger into a pulp, I failed to notice that
my armor had taken a pretty heavy toll throughout the level. Unlike
the first game that simply rebooted you after dying the first time,
this one actually reloads you back to the last checkpoint.

44 – OK, so I beat
it this time.

45 – So now I fly
down to another entrance. The doors close behind me and more mechs rush
me. I take them out and run down a hall. More Iron Man drones
come at me. More melee in response. Once they’re down, I have
to access a control panel. Or not. Guess I have to shoot it. Weird.
More guys come at me.

46 – Flying indoors
is kind of quirky, bouncing off walls and hitting things, the game tries
to guess what you wanted to do which leads to some pretty jerky camera
movement. So I get to the energy generator and blow it up.

48 – Back in Tony’s
lab, I have more options for upgrades. And now I have a lot more points
to spend. But it will take me some time to decide what to upgrade so
I look through some of the possibilities but just end up choosing the
next mission. Onward and upward!

51 – The next
mission starts with a cutscene. We get to see Tony and Rhodes
doing some research. Turns out the Armigers are remotely controlled
and it’s a good idea to take out the base that controls them. We also
discover that a corporate competitor is building a suit for the Russian
General Valentin. It’s called the…….Crimson Dynamo…DUN, DUN,
DUN!

52 – Another cutscene
now shows a scientist and General Valentin arguing about the possibility
of a spy. Valentin doesn’t believe it. Then the scientist tells
him that S.H.I.E.L.D. is on the way. Valentine orders him to prep the
dynamo.

53 – Loading. Now
we see some helicopters flying in and some armor being built. We see
scientists trying to flee and being gunned down. Iron Man flies
in and Jarvis tells us that the presence of a large tesla power source
means we’re in the right place. Iron Man flies in through a vent and
enters the base. We’re now under ground.

54 – The General welcomes
Iron Man and says the confrontation was inevitable. He then unleashes
a welcoming committee of mechs. Melee + Pulse cannon = good. The
camera is all over the place with the auto aim. I’m getting punched
like crazy but it’s hard to tell if I’m getting hurt. I’m told
to take out the tesla reactor. Naturally. If playing video games has
taught me anything, it’s that tesla reactors are meant to be destroyed.

55 – I go through
a door and I’m told to shoot the tesla reactor stabilizers.
There’s one in each corner of the room and mechs all over the place.

56 – I’ve taken
out 2 stabilizers and I realize this is a really nice looking set piece.
There’s electricity everywhere and the mech battle is very impressive.
In my ogling of the level, I lose track of my health and put another
death on the tally.

57 – I load up at
the last checkpoint and come back in strong, easily taking out all 4
stabilizers. When I do, Achievement unlocks 15G “Pulling the Plug”.

59 – The ensuing explosion
triggers a Return of the Jedi style escape sequence. Much like the Millennium
Falcon is escaping the exploding Death Star, so I am escaping the exploding
power station. I’m flying at high speed through rapidly exploding
tunnels and hallways. Everything is blowing up just as I pass by. It
would be pretty impressive were it not for my horrible flight skills
in this tight space. I’m bouncing off everything like a plinko
disc. I realize intense cinematic sequences like this are something
you want to have early in the game to impress, but it would be far more
rewarding later in the game when the player has the skills to really
pull it off. Based on how badly I’m flying and the fact that I still
make it out in one piece, I’m guessing it’s nearly impossible to
fail to escape. And that nicely wraps up 60 minutes.

First Hour Summary

Minutes to Action: 2

Minutes to Control:
5

What I liked: Iron Man of course. He’s a great hero and growing
up reading a lot of the Iron Man comics, I’m a natural demographic
for a game like this. Like they said in the developer conference
call, Iron Man is a “very gameable” character. With his suit, his
attitude and the upgrade factor inherent to the universe, it’s almost
born to be a video game. The introduction of War Machine is a
welcome addition. There’s not a simpler way to add versatility to
a game than to double the number of playable characters. They
play just similarly enough that one should be able to switch back and
forth with minimal disorientation, but different enough that they offer
a variation in how one goes about tackling the level.

What I didn't like: They say the controls have been improved,
however, it may be more accurate to say they have been changed and simplified.
That’s well and good for some things, like not having to hold a button
to hover, but it also means less manual control and more auto everything.
As long as the game correctly assumes your intended action, it works
ok, but when it doesn’t guess right, the gameplay and camera can get
a bit spastic. Also, the first real mission, the escorting of
the helicopters was almost painful in its’ generic throwaway nature.
Who actually likes babysitting missions where you can’t go more than
50 meters away from who you’re protecting and they are moving super
slow? This type of mission is one of my personal pet peeves.
No game should ever have another one. Ever.

Gameplay: The gameplay is very similar to the first game, a
basic third person action/flight simulator with a greater emphasis on
melee. That works out well, particularly since melee is potentially
the most effective tactic vs. quite a few opponents. Once you
get the flight controls down, you can move quickly from enemy to enemy,
punching their lights out. My only complaint at this point is that the
melee appears to be pretty dumbed down, with very little versatility
in button usage for the different combos.

Fun Factor: This is
heavily dependent on your love of Iron Man. If you just want a
great game that nails the fun factor, this one doesn’t quite do the
trick. Early on, the levels and enemies come off as generic and
Iron Man’s full potential isn’t likely to come into play for the
first few hours. If, however, you want to play around as Iron
Man and explore the universe of the comics and movie, this might scratch
the itch.

Graphics and Sound: The cutscenes don’t look great. Don
Cheadle looks like a zombie and Pepper Potts demonstrates none of the
quirky cuteness she is famous for. The sounds are fine. Although,
strangely, the conversation is only on the center channel in 5.1 during
the cutscenes and only in the stereo channels during the gameplay.
I noticed this because I was holding my microphone up to my speakers
during the conversations so I could listen to it again as I wrote this.
The voice acting however is top notch (except for Pepper). Note:
It’s NOT Robert Downey Jr. voicing Tony this time around. Although,
the guy they use does a good job and when he’s in the suit, he sounds
surprisingly like Downey Jr.

Story: Not surprisingly, the story is right out of a comic book,
figuratively speaking. Tesla reactors, rogue Russian Generals, evil
corporations. This is standard Iron Man (and video game) stuff but
it does the trick. I don’t think any Iron Man fans are expecting Tolstoy.

Overall: Iron Man 2 doesn’t get off to the best start. Generic
missions and level design bog down what could be a solid gaming engine.
However, the final 20 minutes of the hour really pick up the pace nicely.
I’m interested to see what some of the upgrades do that I didn’t
have time to mess with in the first 60 minutes. A strong boost in devastation
could really increase the potential pleasure of the gameplay. It would
also help by drawing attention to the highly destructible environments.

Would I keep playing?
This is honestly a tough call. I actually WILL continue playing because
I am also writing a full review for this game since the game was sent
to us by the publisher. However, were that not the case, I would be
on the fence. If I weren’t a fan of Iron Man, I’d be done
right now. But since I heart the franchise and since the last 20 minutes
started to pick up, I’d probably give it at least another hour to
either grab me or push me away. Also, I don’t know if this is cheating
on a first hour review, but I kept playing just a bit past the first
hour and the first boss you come to, Crimson Dynamo is actually a pretty
fun fight. Based on all those factors, I’d call this a narrow, “Yes,
I would keep playing” even with having to write the review.